1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a combined switch and a switching method, and more particularly, to a packet/Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) switch that may accept a TDM circuit and a carrier Ethernet signal, and a method for packet/TDM switching.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional Multi-Service Provisioning Platform (MSPP) apparatus may employ a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) switch as a basic switch and convert an Ethernet signal to a Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) signal using an Ethernet over SDH (EoS) function, and thereby enable the Ethernet signal to be accepted in the TDM switch.
Also, a carrier Ethernet transport network apparatus scheduled to be applied to a service provider network may employ a packet switch as a basic switch and convert a TDM signal to a packet signal using a Circuit Emulation over Packet (CEP) function, and thereby enable the TDM signal to be accepted in the packet switch.
Currently, a carrier Ethernet transport network is being changed from being based on a TDM circuit signal to being based on a packet signal. Accordingly, there is a need to maintain a circuit performance of an existing TDM scheme and to maintain an advantage of the packet signal transferable without a limitation.
However, the existing MSPP apparatus has an inefficiency of limiting a transfer of an Ethernet packet signal. The carrier Ethernet transport network apparatus may deteriorate the existing performance of the TDM signal by packetizing the TDM signal.